


Help

by TakeMeOut



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-12 01:11:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19218580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TakeMeOut/pseuds/TakeMeOut
Summary: "No matter how much you change, Doctor, no matter how many people you surround yourself with or how far you run - the past is still there. You know that better than anyone.”The woman steps forward and runs one finger under the Doctor’s braces, thoughtfully. “And as long as your past is still there, I’ll still be here to help you.”





	Help

_ Fourth Doctor _

 

He’s on Logopolis the first time she appears. The Doctor is running long fingers through unruly hair, his face strained with the effort of hiding his concern from his companions. He leaps to his feet and turns as he hears the noise of movement close behind him. 

 

There’s a woman standing behind him, and he takes a step back without realising it. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” he demands. 

 

She shuts her eyes for a moment as if preparing herself. “A friend.” Her voice drops. “I’m here to help you, Doctor.”

 

He evaluates her for a moment, and decides that she’s unlikely to pose an immediate threat. “Bit beyond that, at this stage, I’m afraid.” His grin is more than a little bitter, and his voice is clipped. “I don’t know how you got in here, but you need to leave.”

 

She shakes her head, slowly. “Please, Doctor,” she says, her voice urgent. “I know you don’t know me, but you will. And you really do need my help. Will you let me show you?’ 

 

He studies her face, trying to discern whether this is a trap. She’s evidently fighting to keep her expression impassive, though every line in her body radiates urgency. In the end he shrugs fatalistically and reaches for her temples. 

 

He enters her mind as if edging into a house he’s not sure he’s welcome in. He finds himself in a space like a huge, vaulted room, and realises she’s housed her intent towards him in one place for him to see, to feel. There are many doors around the room, all locked; he recognises these as her memories, shut away where he can’t see them, and he wonders why. But her feelings towards him are all here, and he’s almost overwhelmed by it. 

 

He senses a deep wave of care, and affection, and concern, and something else … something he can’t quite recognise. The feeling is urgent and strong, and he can’t remember what it is. He’s seen it before, but not for a long time; he knows it’s nothing negative, though, and that’s enough for him for now. 

 

“Who are you?” he says again. “And how do you know me?”  _ And why do you care for me so much, _ is his final unspoken question.

 

She looks him in the eye, and shakes her head. “I”m sorry Doctor, but I can’t tell you that yet. I should’ve gone further, given us some more time, but I’ve come back as far as I can - I’ve already broken so many rules ...” She shakes her head again, and he suddenly feels compelled to speak. 

  
  


“The end is coming,” he says. It’s not quite a question, and his eyes are sad despite the lopsided smile he gives her. 

 

She reaches out to run a thumb across his lips as he watches her, biting back questions. Her eyes are kind but her voice is decisive. “Be ready, Doctor. You must prepare.” He looks at her for a second, and nods slowly. 

 

He doesn’t move as she takes a half-step towards him, her body brushing against his, and kisses him once. She’s already gone by the time his lips open and he releases a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. And then he remembers - it’s been such a long time, but he recalls the feeling he sensed in the woman’s mind, and remembers it as desire. 

 

_ Fifth Doctor _

 

She finds the Doctor in his room, closeted away, hiding his grief and guilt at Adric’s death from Nyssa and Tegan. This time, he doesn’t react as she steps towards him, the quiet rustling of her clothes alerting him to her presence. Somehow, he’s not surprised. 

 

“I still don’t know who you are,” he says without preamble. “Or what you are to me.”

 

She smiles slightly. “A friend. I told you.”

 

He shakes his head as if trying to jog his thoughts into order. “That doesn’t tell me anything.”

 

“Give it time, Doctor. You’ll find out.” She squints wryly at him. “In the meantime, you’ll have to take my word for it.”

 

He snorts humourlessly. “Listen. I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m not sure there’s anything you can do to help at this precise moment in time.”

 

She watches him as he sits and rubs his face tiredly. Her voice is gentle when she speaks. “I know what happened to Adric. And I know how much this has hurt you.”

 

He looks up sharply. “How do you know about Adric?”

 

She sits next to him, carefully leaving a space between them. “You told me,” she says quietly. His mind explodes with a thousand possibilities, but he says nothing.

 

“What’s your instinct telling you Doctor? About what you need right now?” He sighs, and covers his face again, and she touches him gently on the knee. “Doctor?”

 

Her touch is at once comforting and oddly electrifying, and he remembers what he sensed in her mind. Before he even knows what he’s doing he’s lunging blindly towards her, and she meets him halfway as he kisses her desperately and messily. 

 

He feels her touching his mind gently, reassuringly, and the tears he’s worked so hard to hide begin to roll down his face as she threads her fingers through his hair and sucks his tongue into her mouth. 

 

She undoes his trousers to find him already achingly hard, and he bites back a cry when she frees him from his underwear. When she straddles him, his legs shake with the attempt not to thrust up into her, but she sinks onto him as if she knows exactly what he needs. And the feeling of her wet heat surrounding him, taking him in, is like balm on a wound, and he groans with a kind of desperate relief. 

 

And when she leaves, he’s that little bit stronger. 

 

_ Sixth Doctor _

 

All his bravado has gone. He’s overwhelmed by the trial, and Peri is dead; he watched her die. 

 

She appears in his cell and barely speaks a word this time, as if sensing how fragile he is without the prickly, superior exterior he can no longer summon. He’s helplessly vulnerable, battered by the trial; he lets her push him onto his bed, tear open his trousers and fuck him almost fully clothed, grinding down onto him until he comes with a cry that’s almost a sob. 

 

_ Eighth Doctor _

 

She’s almost too breathless to speak by the time she reaches Grace’s house, and when Grace answers the door the woman falls through it without acknowledging her. She’s already talking to the Doctor, words tumbling out over one another. “God, I’ve looked everywhere for you - where have you been? I found the Tardis and you weren’t there, and then …”

 

“I know you.” The Doctor blinks and frowns as he interrupts her. “I don’t know who you are, but I know you.”

 

Grace tries to get a word in edgeways, fails, and throws her hands into the air. She sweeps off into the interior of the house, rolling her eyes and muttering darkly about escaped psychiatric patients. 

 

The Doctor’s gaze doesn’t leave the woman as she continues talking. “I wasn’t meant to be here. I was on my way to find you somewhere else, but I … I was diverted.”

 

He watches her, his face open and lost and more childlike than she’s seen for years. He clearly doesn’t understand anything she’s saying, so instead she threads her hand through his curls; pops open the top button of his shirt to run the other hand over the smooth, pale muscle of his chest. 

 

The Doctor smiles naively and tugs her onto his lap, seemingly happy to follow her lead. One hand ghosts up underneath her top and over her breast, fingers tracing the nipple as she leans into his touch and pulls on his head, guiding his mouth to suck the other breast through the thin fabric of her top.  

 

The next thing he knows, he’s thrusting up desperately into her, chasing an instinct he can’t name. As he feels her coming around him, her pleasure spills into his mind and pulls him over the edge and - to his shock and surprise - she gives him the mental equivalent of an almighty kick up the backside. He reels, but he has the strangest sense that his name - and everything else - will come back to him soon. 

 

She buttons his clothes back up as he frowns at her, grasping for details. But she slips away before Grace comes back in, carrying a sealed syringe and a microscope. 

 

He blinks at Grace and looks at his bare feet with a puzzled expression. “Do you have any shoes I could borrow?”

 

_ The War Doctor  _

 

She comes to him after Karn, and he pushes her away without speaking. She doesn’t come back for a long time.

 

_ Ninth Doctor  _

 

She stands before him, hands on hips as he rants, flecks of spittle flying from his mouth as he rages. “They’re all gone. All of them, and it’s my fault. They burned, every one of them, and it’s all because of me.” 

 

She listens, and waits until his anger and despair burns itself out. “You’ve been alone for too long, Doctor. Stop pushing people away. It’s not … good. It’s not good for you.”

 

He smiles mirthlessly. “I can’t. Not any more. I can’t get close to anyone, not any more. Adric, Tamsin, Lucie  …” His voice trails away. He can’t bring himself to say Susan and Alex’s names. 

 

She doesn’t say anything after that. He doesn’t stop her sliding her hands onto his shoulders and resting her forehead on his, but he doesn’t touch her either. It’s only when she sucks on his bottom lip and reaches out for him with her mind that his hands start to glide up her body, as if of their own volition. 

 

_ Tenth Doctor  _

 

After the library, after River has died, he remembers what the woman said the last time he saw her -  _ you won’t be needing me for a while _ \- and he wonders. 

 

_ Eleventh Doctor _

 

Once, he thinks he sees the woman on earth, in London, talking urgently to River. But River won’t be drawn on the subject, and he can’t be sure it was her. 

 

_ Twelfth Doctor  _

 

She returns after Darillium, when he’s broken and grieving and hiding from the universe. His body is rigid when she touches him, and as she kisses the corner of his lips, his eyelids roll shut. 

 

He’s statue-still, refusing to touch her, but when she slides her hand down the front of his trousers he’s hard, straining against his dark trousers. 

 

She chooses her words carefully as she cups his cheek. “It’s not a betrayal, you know. River ....”

 

“She knew you, didn’t she. Knew about you.”

 

She strokes his face until he opens his eyes and turns his piercing blue-eyed gaze on her. “Of course she did,” she says, simply. 

 

“Did she send you?” The woman shakes her head, but it’s not a denial.  _ It’s not time for you to know that yet. _ She runs her fingers down his chest, but he catches her wrist before she loops her fingers into the top of his trousers. 

 

“This is … it’s not …” 

 

He can’t find the words, but she seems to understand. “I know this isn’t the way of the Time Lords, Doctor. But I thought you stopped feeling guilty about how much you enjoy it a long time ago.” She smiles mischievously, and he lets go of her wrist. 

 

This body, he discovers, likes to fuck hard and fast, and he holds her down on the bed with his body as if she might fly away if he doesn’t. The woman seems to like that too, if the fingernail marks she leaves in his back are anything to go by, so he stops asking questions and buries his grief and anger deep inside her warmth instead. 

 

_ Thirteenth Doctor _

 

“It’s hard to catch you on your own, these days,” the woman’s voice says from behind her.  

 

The Doctor doesn’t turn from her examination of the console display. Her shoulders tense fractionally, and her voice is cautious when she speaks. “Appreciate the visit, but everything’s fine.  _ I’m  _ fine.”

 

There’s a pause, and then the woman says, “Look at me, Doctor. Please.”

 

The Doctor turns, brows lowered as if in defence, and meets her eye silently. 

 

“I heard what you said, Doctor.  _ Everyone else has fallen. _ ”

 

The Doctor speaks reluctantly. “I regenerated though, didn’t I? I changed. Just like I always do. So why are you here? Why now?”

 

The woman regards her steadily. “Because no matter how much you change, Doctor, no matter how many people you surround yourself with or how far you run - the past is still there. You know that better than anyone.” 

 

The woman steps forward and runs one finger under the Doctor’s braces, thoughtfully. “And as long as your past is still there, I’ll still be here to help you.” 

 

The Doctor shuts her eyes, and presses her forehead against the woman’s for a moment, before her lips begin to drift down the woman’s neck. She murmurs into the warm skin behind the woman’s ear. “So … when do I actually get to find out who you are?”

 

The woman leans into the Doctor’s touch and smiles. “Give it time, Doctor. Give it time.”


End file.
